Bio-performance is a term introduced
by Yiannis Melanitis to describe lineages between art and biogenetics, as an environment controlled
by genetic algorithms, a transformable, codified system irreversible in time.

in the direction of defining an
artistic context through biogenetic terms

‘The metaphore in the
philosophical text’ wrote Derrida as a subtitle forhis book ‘White Mythology’ [1] -inspired by
A.France and ‘Le Jardin d’ Epicure’-while Yiannis Melanitisdeals with the concept ofthe metaphor through the body(more accurately,
what we would define as the body-text), the one that
derives from translation, transformations, mutations. Yiannis Melanitismakes a parallel between body-text
mutations and the transformations of substances in nature, so the platonic
ideas that ‘decline’ (moving from the ideal to lower forms), resembleto the mutated biological forms (moving
from simplicity to complexity), in an effort to define philosophical
lineages through the biogenetic context.[2]

For Derrida, the text is always under the
procedure of translation. By the same way, life is codified, is subsequent
to translative dynamics,does not have a permanent prototype,
(a
geno- or pheno-type model), cuts and zipson copies of previous copies. The text,
the body, in either life or art are genealogically fissiparus, producedthrough chiasmatypia. The code is
unbreakable, is never accomplished…

Equivalences may be
observed between codifications and the artistic
activity: The code is present in both occasions, while movement
is produced via translations. A point, a matter, a text is transposed through a
code which also constitutes a language.

Returning to the genealogical context of evolutionary
biology, the bioforms are the outcomes of erratic codifications; we may consider a
parallelism between biogenetic transformations and the platonic ideas. The flow direction
through these climaxes is uncertain; it is realised either towards one or the
other direction, in a twofold pathway
resembling to the inscription of Nietzsche’s eternal return. [3]

If a performance theory aimed to
present the body as a bio-analogical system, all representations and
interactions can be analysed through
competitive systems and evolutionary processes. A substantial discrimination
between the geometrical space of Oscar Schlemmer as theoreticized at the
BAUHAUS and the bio-performance may be observed in their relationship with the
body:

Schlemmer/Bauhaus: Space= soft

As Schlemmer puts it: "a space
filled with pliable substance in which the figures of the sequence of the
dancer's movements were to harden as a negative form." The body of the
dancers obtain an 'object' quality, moving in a rather predictable way.

Virtual Reality performances:

The body "disappears" and is remotely
controlled. Its feedback is determined by external information or

through interactions.

Bio-performance:

body= soft, malleable.
The body is considered as "liquid space" while moving within space.

The use of a genetic algorithm became a
substantial point in the works of Yiannis Melanitis. In the ensuing
evolutionary steps of the work ‘The Garden’, a work partially performed, being
under a transformative process itself, genetic algorithmsdefine its basic parameters (from
agents trajectories till bodily prosthetic forms.) Genetic algorithms are not
merely guidelines for formalistic interpretations; more essentially, they
should function as a ‘source of metaphors to remodel life, aiming to reveal the
area that comprises the ‘parental scheme’, the initial philosophical idea
concealed under the external schemes, before the metaphors, still before the
first, the inceptive transfer…

As
Derrida says,[1] in all human words, a materialized scheme had been parently
stamped, and all the words, when they were new, represented a certain
perceptible image...the inevitable materialism of the vocabulary… While in ‘The
Garden’ the place of vocabulary coincides with the genetic base sequence, our
concern is not merely the coding transformations ; more extensively, our aiming
is in the approximation of the initial, non-transferable concept…

Within the borders of bio-capitalism,
biotech is formalising nature into molds, mechanising organic systems, applying
informatics in the bio-organic level. Placed within this framework, information
is transformed to bio-information which is mechanically imposed on the body,
potentially altering its developmental perspective. As P. Rabinow claims in his
essay titled "Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociobiology to
Biosociality : " the object to be known- the human genome- will
be known in such a way that it can be changed. This dimension is thoroughly
modern; one could even say that it instantiates the definition of modern
rationality". Genetic information, due to its complexity, provides a
source of transforming the body into a complex system which brings about
unpredictable outcomes.

3. Zarathustra, to the dwarf over his
shoulder:

"Halt, dwarf!" said I.
"Either I- or you! I, however, am the stronger of the two:- you knowest
not my abysmal thought! It- could you not endure!"

Then happened that which made me
lighter: for the dwarf sprang from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it
squatted on a stone in front of me. There was however a gateway just where we
halted.

"Look at this gateway!
Dwarf!" I continued, "it has two faces. Two roads come together here:
these has no one yet gone to the end of. This long lane backwards: it continues
for an eternity. And that long lane forward- that is another eternity. They are
antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly abut on one another:-
and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the
gateway is inscribed above: 'This Moment.' But should one follow them further-
and ever further and further on, think you, dwarf, that these roads would be
eternally antithetical?"-